Golf driving ranges are a familiar sight to those driving the highways today. A supply of golf balls is purchased by the user who then hits them one at a time from a teeing area into a large open field. If each ball is to be teed up before hitting, the golfer must bend over before each shot to place a ball on a tee, which may be the familiar wooden or plastic tee pushed into the ground, or it may be a flexible rubber tube built into a mat or set permanently in the ground. Many persons who can swing a golf club cannot bend over from the waist to place a ball on a tee. It is for such persons that an automatic teeing apparatus is a necessary device if such practice shots are to be tried. Furthermore, there now are available for home use golf nets that can be set up permitting the golfer to hit into the net with a full swing of the club, and for such purpose an automatic teeing apparatus would be very desirable.
Many such devices have been suggested in tile past employing different systems to provide one teed-up golf ball at a time. One of the most useful systems involves a swinging arm to transfer a golf ball from a reservoir of balls to a tee. Typical of such systems are those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,265,453; 4,796,893; 4,957,296; and 4,995,614. While these have many desirable features, they do not provide the most efficient and useful apparatus that can be devised. Some of the advantages of this invention are as follows:
A. portable and holds at least 25 balls in the magazine; PA1 B. used by anyone on a driving range; PA1 C. can be rented full of balls and taken from the pro shop to the driving range; PA1 D. can be set up easily and quickly to dispense the ball on the tee at the driving range; PA1 E. a rubber mat may cover the base to hold it in place while in use; PA1 F. the golf driving ranges often are concrete with separate places for each person having a mat with a flexible rubber tee to hit the balls therefrom and this device is simply placed on the concrete in front of the mat and centered to dispense the balls on the rubber tee by manually lowering the dispensing head and looking through the open head to see that the tee is centered in the head and the golfer views the ball settling on the tee before releasing the dispensing arm.
An object of this invention is to provide a novel and useful golf ball teeing apparatus. Another object of this invention is to provide a novel apparatus for teeing golf balls with a vertically pivotable arm dispensing the golf ball. Still other objects will become apparent from the more detailed description which follows.